


Jarring Little World

by teacupofhoneybees



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: F/M, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26590450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupofhoneybees/pseuds/teacupofhoneybees
Summary: Mason studies a sleeping detective before leaving her once more
Relationships: Female Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles)
Kudos: 21





	Jarring Little World

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely self indulgent writing warm up lmao. Hope you like it!

Tranquility was the only word that could ever describe these moments. A word that Mason never thought he would find… that he would discover or get to experience. 

But how else could he describe basking in the warm glow of the detective’s room, everything around him being undeniably her, laying in the comfortable bed, her hand as familiar as his own laced with his, the detective’s bare body pressed against him, and the only sound filling his ears being the sound of the soft beating of her heart and the fanning of her breath? Oddly, impossibly, he felt like it was maybe, just maybe, filling his heart too. 

How jarring it was in the little world he lived in with the detective where everything bad, painful… annoying melted away and the only thing left in it’s wake was what he had to assume normalcy felt like. What being human must have felt like. 

He wished he could physically shake the idea away without waking the detective. Surely, somewhere deep down, it he didn’t like it and wouldn’t have any of it. Somewhere. 

…Right?

The detective’s body began to shift next to him, clammy, sweat-dampened skin peeling from his, as she turned from her side to her back. The arm that was not with his was now flung haphazardly across the bountiful bare space on the other side of the bed that the two so closely pressed together did not occupy…the detective now very exposed. 

Mason mourned her enviably peaceful rest primarily because he was bereft of just how red the detective would be if she knew what she looked like now. 

Mason (almost reluctantly) released her hand from his, sat up, grabbed the blanket wrapped lower down the detective’s body, and pulled it up so she was now comfortably covered. He goddamn nearly tucked her in before realizing how much he would have hated that being done to him. He had preserved her honor, more than he had given himself credit for, and should leave it at that. 

But he didn’t.

He got caught up in the relaxed look of her face, the bird’s nest of hair that he definitely contributed to making, red and swollen lips that he had kissed more times than he could count were slightly open, the lines of her face that were normally so visible with worry during her waking hours were now hypnotizingly smoothed in sleep, and she had that glow about her that he wanted eternalized into a painting for him to remember for forever. 

When was the last time he experienced anything he wanted to remember, let alone remember for forever?

Before he knew what he was doing, he gently pushing the hair out of her face so that her own breath wouldn’t move it and tickle her awake. His knuckles lightly danced along the lines of her face in a way that he could only indulge in when they were alone and without outsiders comment and gazes. 

It was all very… intimate. And not at all like him. Where was his famed depravity? Where was his shamelessness? This was an act that lovers do, not… whatever this was supposed to be between him and the detective. Mason found he could no longer recall what exactly it was supposed to be anymore. 

It was a frightening thing- this sudden feeling like you didn’t know who you were or what you wanted. Or, rather, it was a frightening thing to feel something you didn’t know and didn’t want. Maybe it was just frightening to feel. 

But he knew he was feeling something, that together they were something, and no amount of fear or rejection could put a stop to what he and the detective and put into motion. And Mason didn’t think he wanted to even if he could. 

She felt like a puzzle piece that you thought the manufacturer somehow messed up and left out of the box. Then one day, out of the blue and without seeking it, you find it in the last place you would have dreamed it to be. In fact, you had never imagined finding it at all. 

Mason’s hand outlined the soft line of the detective’s jaw until he felt the reassuring feeling of the rhythmic throbbing in her neck. His gaze slid, as it often did, to the pale markings of a bite he wasn’t sure would ever fade.

Looking at her neck, so exposed in the way her head had lolled to the side, eerily like an offering- was another thing that alarmed him. It enraged him, destroyed him, and made his chest constrict painfully… confusingly. 

Humans were weak. Prey for the supernatural to feed upon and toy with. Naïve beings at the bottom of the food chain. The detective knew all of this better than anyone with all she had been through and with what she was. What her blood meant. She knew her own fatalistic vulnerability and disregarded it without thought around him. As if he couldn’t tear into her in a split second and take her away from all that she knew. 

Mason should have laughed at or been angered by the stupidity of it, the naivety of it. Should have… but could not.

The trust that she had in knowing he could never do that to her gripped his heart in a feeling he could only describe as anxiety because he didn’t know what else to label it. Mason had never felt anything like this and he wished more than he would ever admit that he could name it. To be able to identify, know, and use all the irritatingly pretty words for it that Nate could if he were in Mason’s shoes. 

Mason pressed a tender kiss to her throat, cherishing the feeling of life that throbbed there and met his lips. He kissed her there like it was a prayer… as if he were giving thanks to her body, having nothing but himself to give as an offering, for allowing her to live another day. And maybe he was. 

Her life to him had a weight, a value, that he could never translate to words. 

The detective was unmoving in his attentions and he was grateful. He slowly moved to rest his head in the crook of her neck, lips pressing to the curve of it once more when he settled, and listened to her heart in this spot that felt like front row seats. He should leave, but he couldn’t deny the pull he felt to stay and indulge himself just a little bit longer. The pull to never leave.

How jarring it was in the little world he lived in with the detective.


End file.
